Tomboy
by Inudaughter Returns
Summary: A very odd one. Helga wrestles with being a tomboy.


**This is a weird one, and not very funny. But it's what I felt like writing.**

 **Thanks! -Inudaughter**

 **Tomboy**

On a warm and sunny morning, Big Bob Pataki opened the fridge door and fished out a carton of milk. This he opened up at the top, and tilting it, slurped out of the carton before putting it back in the fridge.

"Ah, B!" complained his wife, Miriam loudly. "Why do you always have to do that?"

"What?" asked Big Bob before strolling off. Miriam watched her husband leave for the living room with a face full of disgust. Meanwhile, Helga jogged downstairs. Momentarily, she too, popped into the kitchen.

"Hey, how's it going, Miriam?" asked Helga cheerily.

"Oh. Hello, Helga dear," said Miriam. "Do you want a cup of milk? Because I believe we have a second carton at the back," said Miriam rummaging through the fridge which was amply stocked for once. Helga's eyes lit on an unopened carton of orange juice and her face lit up. She hadn't had orange juice for quite a while.

"Naw, don't sweat it!" said Helga snatching hold of the orange carton while the getting was good. Popping open the paper top into a little triangle, she took swig.

"Ah, Helga!" said Miriam much the same same disappointment as she had shown towards Bob a few minutes earlier.

"What?" said Helga in perfect emulation of her old man before she power walked away into the living room.

Helga craned her head to spy on what her father was doing. By the looks of things, Bob was watching a recorded tape of a football game he'd missed. Helga could see the flashing screen shift between footage of men jogging on field and commercials with loud and happy music. Finding a little space in a faraway chair, Helga sat down to read from her newest Nancy Spumoni catalog. Then, when a loud score goal sounded sounded out, she raised her head in tense anticipation. Sure enough, not a second passed before Big Bob Pataki broke out into a long string of curses.

"Mother-go-ducking-bugger-monkey-fetch!" Big Bob swore extremely loud. Helga's eyes bulged. They swished back and forth. Then she pulled a little notepad from the skirt of her dress.

"Wow, I haven't heard that one before!" said Helga working the tip of her pencil back and forth quickly as she dashed letters upon the page. "I've got to add this one to my big book of swears!" But her mother, Miriam, had seen the whole event. She stood by the living room door, both hands at her hips.

"Now, now, B! That just isn't right! How many times have I told you not to swear like that in front of Helga! She might learn bad habits!" Big Bob Pataki folded his eyebrow.

"Wha? Nonsense! The girl doesn't swear. At least not more than my lawyer does in court."

"Tsh,tsh, tsk!" Miriam clacked between her teeth angrily. "Now, Helga, you go on outside to play! I don't want you sitting round here!" Nervously, Helga slid off the couch and tiptoed out the door. She sensed in her bones her parents might get into another argument and this time it was mostly her fault, which made it doubly worse. Still, when Helga heard the front door close swiftly behind her, she took a few, deep steadying breaths of the air. It wasn't as if Hillwood had the cleanest, freshest of air what with there being factories and all but it was decent. That was one of the benefits of living in a city so close to the ocean. The coastline sucked much of smog away and on mornings like these, filled the city with delicious smelling, damp air from off the coast.

The grass was still wet with dew from nightfall and the timeless rising of the sun. Helga took a stick and scratched the dust with it. But the clock tower, Big Barney, was a heavy presence in her life. It hung overhead and reminded her, that whether she was ready or not, time was rapidly slipping by. So, to make up for the time she had spent daydreaming, Helga picked up her pace and began to trot down the sidewalk. After all, she did have things to do today.

Helga had planned to meet up with Phoebe. Phoebe was not one for sports but she did have a soft spot for shopping, as most girls do. Her mother, Reba, was bringing both Helga and Phoebe along to J-Mart with her and the two girls appreciated the opportunity to not get kicked out for looking like shoplifters. As long as they stayed reasonably by Phoebe's mother, the many long and inviting isles full of strange and curious clothing and housegoods were theirs to explore. Helga's own pocket was filled with ample cash for the outing. She had brung her allowance with her. So it was that she carried a plastic shopping basket along for her own chosen things.

"Hey, hey hold up a sec!" said Helga loudly. Phoebe Heyerdahl stopped short. She had been pushing a shopping cart way too tall for herself to see over, forward, but she slowed in the aisle.

"I need a birthday gift for old Pink Boy!" said Helga referring to Harold Berman, a boy who she had hung around with a lot more often before she had started fifth grade. For a moment, Helga felt a twitch of guilt. Then she flushed that guilt away, straight out of her mind, relabeling the shift as a necessary evil. Nowadays, Harold spent a lot more time with just Sid and Stinky. Helga spent more time with Arnold and Gerald and Phoebe than she had in previous years. But she and Harold, Helga and Harold, had a lot of shared past.

The streets of Hillwood had always been something of a frightening thing. Helga's home was not too distant from the low rent district and its even worse problems than her own family. One of Helga's parent's favorite phrases had always been, "go outside to play," and so Helga had. But whenever she had wandered out in Hillwood's streets, out of necessity, she had gravitated toward the bulky but simple kid with a stick who beat the rats away and kept the nosy grown-ups at bay.

If things had turned out differently, Helga might have had a crush on Harold Berman. But he was too dumb, too slow-thinking, and too immature for crushes and so Helga had thirsted for something more. Someone a little more promising than a bully who had managed to be held back two whole grades in school. So it was that Harold and Helga battered each other with insults to draw a line firmly between them. Harold had nearly let that line between them slip once, when they had both gotten lost on a school field trip. Harold had offered a fragile, not-thought-out love confession, but Helga had wanted nothing to do with it, same as she had no interest in Stinky Peterson. Harold Berman was not the kind of man she wanted to bring home to her parents. Harold was also not the kind of man she had confidence in tying herself, her family's fortunes, and her family's business to, for she was a Pataki, as her father had often said, and Princesses don't settle for anyone. There was too much at stake.

That being said, Harold had been a good and loyal friend to her. Helga could not count the times since preschool that she had run behind Harold for protection from some stray dog or a different bully or well-intentioned woman wondering why a child so young was lost in the park by herself. When one of the other kids pushed Helga over, on occasion it was Harold instead of Helga herself who beat the stuffing out of the offender never to repeat. In a sense, Harold was the self-appointed street king for a time, because he was older and bigger. So Helga had followed after Harold, keeping her emotional attachments to her second best friend at a minimum. Speaking of Harold, Helga looked around.

"Say, where is Pink Boy, anyway?" Helga mused. "I thought I saw him a second ago!"

"Harold went outside to ride the pony ride." Helga rolled her eyes.

"Figures." Really, Harold was getting much too old for the thing. Harold had come here with his Mommy much like Phoebe had with hers. As for herself, Helga was here especially for the chewing gum. Happily, she loaded a hand basket full of one each of every flavor and brand, reading the packages as if she were selecting a wine of fine vintage. "Oh! A new one! I've got to try this!" said Helga throwing a mint blend into the basket, then three cinnamon, then she paused at cheap blue and red package. "Blah!" she said looking at the package anyway. "Badooka! I hate this stuff! Is this even real gum?!"

"Well," said Phoebe who was still waiting around on Helga by her enormous shopping cart. "Some people find the appeal of it to be in the little comic strips printed on wax paper. If you collect all of them, they make a story!"

"Hm, that's right!" said Helga picking up the package and reading it carefully. "Harold does chew these things. Willingly, no less. Well, into the basket it goes! I'll still get ol' Pink Boy a new baseball or something for his birthday but this will be the icing on the cake. So to speak."

It wasn't like Helga wanted to do something sappily sentimental for Harold. She couldn't. It would diminish the pride of them both. Besides, Harold had his eyes on Big Patty these days and the smartest thing was to give the couple a whole lot of necessary distance. Still, it was lonely giving up and growing away from old companions. Especially when her own future was as murky as a crystal ball.

Still, Helga's heart felt a twinge of joy as she arrived two days early for Harold's birthday to deliver a carefully wrapped present to his house. Helga had even made a card, too, with a little picture of his fat face. Not that Helga had stellar drawing skills, but it was nice enough. Helga used the heavy, old-fashioned knocker on the front door. Harold's mother must have been in the kitchen for she opened it quickly. Helga forced a smile onto her face, because it was best if grown-ups saw her only as a sweet little girl child, and not a tiny terror of P.S.118. Despite the lapse of time, Harold's mother did recognize her immediately.

"Why, hello, little girl!" Harold's mother. "Come in! We can make some Cool-aid!"

"That's great, Mrs. Berman!" said Helga even though she had stepped into this house only a handful of times, mostly when she was to short to even see the countertop. Mrs. Berman had bandaged her up once or twice in the long distant past.

"You didn't fall and hurt yourself again, did you, you poor thing?" Mrs. Berman asked. Helga's eyes shifted sideways with embarrassment.

"No, Mrs. Berman," Helga said with flattering cuteness. "I just wanted to give Harold a present for his birthday!"

"Aw," Mrs. Berman cooed. "Now isn't that just the sweetest thing! Harold's in his room!" The boy mentioned must have been in shock because he peered out the door and gaped.

"Helga?!" said Harold. "What are you doing here?" Helga stuffed the little parcel of paper with a hand drawn card into Harold's meaty fist, then backed a few steps away, folded her arms together and waited for a response. Harold looked down at the gift.

"Happy birthday, Harold," he read off the package with painful slowness. "Alright, my first birthday present! Thanks, Helga." Harold smiled.

"Don't mention it," said Helga, her arms still folded. She was dying to get away from this mushiness but as usual, those around her were oblivious to her plight.

Harold opened the gift. He admired the baseball, but then his eyes lit up when he saw the package of gum. He ripped it open. Then, scooting under his bed for a little shoebox, he looked for a fistful of the little paper comics that came with the gum.

"Aw!" Harold lamented as he tried to match up the comic strips. "It's the wrong one! I'd hoped it would be number three out of seven. I haven't got that one yet. But thanks, anyway, Helga. Say, do you wanna see the toy my Mom bought me from J-Mart?" asked Harold. "It's really cool!"

"Sure thing," Helga uttered mildly. She stepped tentatively inside the door as Harold rummaged through a drawer for board game full of characters all named after candy. Her eyebrow flexed at the pictures. It figured. Harold would a love a board game featuring food.

After a short board game, Helga looked through Harold's toys and found something she liked. Amongst the more kosher toys was a little green plastic dart gun. Helga loaded it up and with a leer, aimed for the wall. She let two of the darts fly across the room with a whap.

"Oh, if you want that one, you can have it Helga," said Harold, surprising Helga. "My Mom would be angry if she knew I had it. I'm not supposed to have toys like that."

"Geesh, your mother is really strict!" Helga added, almost envious. "Nah, you keep it for now. I don't need it."

"I'm actually kind of surprised you remembered my birthday at all," said Harold fidgeting his fingers together.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Helga accused. "Are you saying I'm heartless?"

"Well, I wasn't trying to say that!" Harold amended quickly. Too quickly, for it became something even worse that he said. "Don't get me wrong, he's really nice and all, but it's just that now you spend all your time with Arnold instead of me. It kind of makes me mad sometimes."

"Huh?" asked Helga. If she wasn't so shocked, she'd probably be blushing instead. Harold had hit the arrow right on the head.

"Well it's just that you and me used to be friends, Helga. But at some point you decided I wasn't good enough."

"What are you talking about, lard boy?" said Helga growing angry. "Of course we're still friends! We play baseball together all the time. Besides, aren't you busy being friends with Big Patty?"

"Well, Patty's nice," said Harold. "But I'm not stupid you know! Well, at least not that stupid! I saw you do it all the time, you know! Every time I'd take one step forward you'd take three steps back towards Arnold! What I don't like is that you used Arnold to get away from me!" It was like a nuclear bomb had been dropped. Helga froze- silent, immobile. Then she whirled back to face Harold and spoke as coldly as possible. It was like the Ice Age had come all over again.

"How very astute of you, Pink-Boy. I'm impressed."

"See! See! I knew you snubbed me!" Harold jabbed an accusatory finger in the air in Helga's direction. But Helga brindled.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Helga countered. "I just didn't want to wind up Harold Berman's girlfriend. Besides, why are you so upset about it? You've got Big Patty."

"I'm sad because you were my friend first!" said Harold tearing up. Helga felt remorseful immediately.

"We're still friends, Harold! Really!" Helga said hoping to pause that waterfall of tears. "I'm sorry I haven't spent much time with you! How about this? The next time the Monster Truck Rally comes to town, I'll buy tickets for both of us! It'll be great!"

"Well, alright," said Harold sniffling. He used one finger to wipe the tears that had trickled under his nose away.

At least the argument had been short. Helga parted with Harold on good terms, the simple-minded boy playing with a toy fire engine truck. But inside her heart was heavy as stone. How was it whenever she did try to be 'nice' she ended up hurting everyone around her? Harold had inadvertently become one of her victims, and this time, he didn't deserve it. It wasn't their game of bully and boss. Punch and Judy. The hurt she had caused this time was real.

Helga's feet found their way back to her home a few street south of the canal. The blue-painted house was silent and Helga looked up at it in trepidation. Her parents had been beginning an argument when she had last left. She took a deep breath.

"Well, no police caution tape yet!" Helga joked as she cracked open the front door. "Hello? She called inward. One tiny step by step she willed herself to walk inwards, her eyes roving the floor as much as the walls of the silent rooms. Then she was suddenly startled by the sound of a loud violin being scraped by its bow.

"Olga?! What the heck are you doing trying to scare me like that?!" Helga lashed out at her older sister who was hunkered down in the corner of the living room. Olga gave Helga a bewitching smile. "Oh, if you're looking for Mummy and Daddy, I gave Mummy a book by one of her all-time favorite authors to read." Olga pointed the tip of her violin bow towards a stack of paperback books. Helga cracked open one of them to take a quick look. Once glance was all she needed. There were near porn pictures stuffed inside the romance novel.

"Man! Miriam really needs to improve on her taste in literature!" said Helga holding the offending book at arm's length. She snuck the book back under the stack.

"Do you need something to read, sweetums?" Olga asked nicely. But Helga waved a hand.

"Nah, I'm good! I've got an olde English edition copy of Walter Scott's Ivanhoe to read."

Helga walked upstairs and paused by her parent's door. There were kissing noises coming from beyond the door which was gross, but at least it wasn't another argument, so she walked right into her room and plopped down onto her bed.

Helga pulled out a couple books and comics from under the bed. But she wasn't really into the reading at the moment. Trying to cheer herself up, Helga flipped a few pages through a red-covered comic book before shutting it, too. Instead she lay down on her bed and tried to sleep. Helga woke up when darkness had finally come to bring end to the day.

"Eh, a bit cold in here!" Helga complained sitting up and rubbing her shoulders. She shut the open window next to her, then lifted herself up to her feet and padded gently into the bathroom. Helga stood and stared at herself in the reflection on the medicine cabinet. She studied herself closely from every angle, making jeering faces at herself. Then she opened the cabinet, pulled out a cup and filled it with water from the tap. Helga downed the glass of water. Then she returned the glass to the cubby. But Helga's tense wrist slammed the medicine cabinet door a little too hard. The mirror cracked right where the knob was and soon, the entire thing crumbled before into a million silver shreds.

"Oops!" Helga muttered to herself. This wasn't going to go very well over with her parents come morning. With an angry scowl spread across her eyebrows, Helga stamped down the hall. In her room she halted beside one of her dolls seated on a chest. Helga picked it up under arm, then one, then the next, then all of the toys in her chest she carried with herself to arrange them in a perfect ring on the floor in her closet next to her Arnold Shrine. Taking a pillow with her, Helga crawled within the ring and lay down, holding her Arnold locket pressed close to her heart. She closed her eyes and slept. But Helga's curious animal and doll guardians were not enough to keep all dreams away. Instead, Helga found herself inside a very curious one.

"Hello?" Helga heard herself call out loud in her head within the dream. "Hello?" She looked down and saw herself in jeans a white baseball T-shirt instead a white dress. Her blond hair was cropped short and bushy. She walked downstairs to the living room.

"Hello?" Helga called out into the living room. Her father, Big Bob, beamed from within.

"Hello, Harry, my boy!" Big Bob greeted. "Do you want to watch football with me? You're the son I always wanted! In fact, your mother and I love you so much, that we've decided to try for a third younger brother for you!"

"That's right, Harry!" said Miriam Pataki snuggling up to Big Bob at his arm.

"Yup! We want more boys just like you! Not like that girl who's your sister," said Big Bob jerking a thumb in Olga's direction. "What a crybaby!" As proof of that, Olga gave out a few harsh sobs.

"Argh, I'll have to catch up with you all later!" Helga, now Harry within her dream, blurted out. She, or rather he, opened the front door swiftly. Outside it, on the stoop, Harold stood. He was smiling openly at her.

"Come on, Harry!" said the boy. "We don't want to be late for our game!"

"Nah!" Helga could hear herself saying. She followed after Harold with an expression of complete confusion. Nothing in this dream made any sense to her. She and Harry walked to the game; Helga, or rather Harry now, growing more comfortable and smiling more each minute.

"Look, there's the rest of the guys!" said Harold waving. Helga walked up to Sid and Stinky and Eugene and Brainy and felt a comfortable peace as no one made an especial deal out her arrival. Sid and Stinky continued to talk as Harold and she, Harry, greeted Brainy for a plain and ordinary chat. Incredibly, no punching was involved. Then, out of the corner of the eye, Harry saw two girls whip around the corner.

"Why look! It's Abbey and Geraldine!" said Harold pointing. Harry squinted at two girls, one wearing a blue and red dress, the other a red and white print. The two looked eerily like female counterparts to Arnold and Gerald.

"Why, hello!" said Harry, who had now forgotten she was Helga. Harry swept back his gorgeous hair in an alluring way and both Abbey and Geraldine sighed dreamily, then promptly fainted.

"You've got the moves, man!" Harold said in toothy approval. Dream Harry and Harold did a little friendship thumb shake in victory. "Say, do you wanna go over to the all-boys-clubhouse?" asked Harold. Dream Harry beamed.

"Sure thing! Ya I do! Dawg!" They ran down the street. Soon, they stopped at the base of a tiny clubhouse. Toothless Joe opened the door wide.

"Okay! You and can come in men!" the short and squash-headed boy lisped between his missing teeth. "But no girls!"

"Nope!" said Harry mildly. She sat down in a ring of boys playing go-fish.

"No girls here!" shouted another one of the card players. Iggy pointed a finger out the window. "Not like that weird little girl out there who tries all the time to be like us!"

"Yeah!" Dream Harry squinted out the window. With his nose pressed against the glass he could see it, a girl who looked… wait a minute, that was herself! It was Helga wearing her little pink dress. In horror, Harry who was really Helga trapped in a dream turned to stare at all the occupants of the boy's fort, watching their scornful, hateful faces. She flinched as she heard their cruel words.

"She's just pathetic!" Toothless Joe denounced her. Then every one around the circle repeated the same word, the voice becoming louder and louder so that it echoed. "Pathetic, pathetic!" Helga covered her ears against the chant. But last of all, there was her old best friend Harold, glaring down at her, too. "Pathetic!" was Harold's pronouncement. Then Helga snapped to, finding herself awake and dreamless. She looked down at herself and rubbed a thumb along the front of her pink dress to see if it was real.

"Whew!" said Helga. Suddenly sweaty, she fell back against her pillow on the floor. When some of the panic had ebbed, she got up and gently padded back to the bed to hide beneath the covers.

"What a weird dream!" Helga complained out loud to herself before pulling her head back in under her blankets for the time being.

Morning came. Helga reluctantly made her way out into Hillwood's streets again, for it was Sunday. The Jolly Olley Man's truck was parked on a corner not too far from Harold's house. Helga paused by the truck to purchase a fruit-flavored bar wrapped in a white paper wrapper. Some of the paper stuck obnoxiously to the popsicle which must have melted a little at some point, but then she pulled the paper loose so she could eat her favorite snack. As her tongue-tip tasted the cool, flavored ice, letting it slick beneath her tastebuds, Helga was startled mildly by the sound of a familiar voice she had half been expecting to hear. It was Harold.

"Hey, Helga," Harold declared in a rather somber tone. His meaty wrists hung down at either side, his small eyes unreadable. "I know we didn't agree all the time yesterday, but it was really nice of you to bring me that present. And now, well, if you don't mind and it's not too much to ask for, I'd like you to do me a kind of favor." Harold ended his plaintiff by scratching the back of his meaty neck awkwardly. In that moment, the boy seemed fragile and weak. Sentimental. Helga tried to force herself to choose her words carefully, lest she hurt Harold again. At times like these, she found, using as few words as possible was the only real way forward. Otherwise, her unruly heart would just go on inflicting more wounds.

"What kind of favor?" she asked simply, willing her conversational adversary to make the next move so she could get a read on his position.

"Well," said Harold. "Ya know how I'm collecting those little paper comic strips from Badooka chewing gum? Well, Curly says that Toothless Joe and Iggy have the comic strip three in their little clubhouse. I asked 'em but they won't show it to me. The jerks! So I want ya to do something for me. I want you and I to go over to the clubhouse and you can borrow it for me. Then we'll give it back!"

"Harold!" said Helga huffing. "That's a terrible idea! It's borderline stealing! I thought you had learned better than that after that whole Green's Meats fiasco."

"Yeah, I know," said Harold fidgeting. "But I really want to read it. We won't steal it! We'll borrow it for a minute."

"No, Harold," said Helga. "Just, no. But we could go over there and I don't know, ask if we could roll dice or something to win viewing privileges. Or we could barter. I bet we could reel them in with a bunch of candy bars. But there is one tiny detail wrong with your plan."

"Huh? What's that?"

"I'm a girl remember?! That bunch won't have anything to do with me! Their clubhouse is all boys exclusive." Standing tall, proud, and leaning backwards, Helga sucked on her popsicle which had become sticky and drippy as she had spoke, until she had sucked off all the really mushy parts. Then, popping the bar out of her mouth again, Helga waved it around softly in gesture. "Maybe we should just go back to J-Mart and buy all of the gum there."

"Nah, aw! My plan's good!" said Harold stubbornly. "I already thought of that, right, and all we'd got to do is to dress you up as a boy! That way you can come as my friend. Someone they've never seen before. And you can ask them about the comic." Helga sighed deeply.

"All right, Pink-Boy, if it's really so important to you! I'll come along! I'll try to get the comic for you. Just let me handle things alright? My way!"

"Aw, gee, thanks Helga! You're the best!" said Harold very excited. But unlike Arnold in his happiest of moods, Harold made no move forward to clasp Helga in her hug. Instead the fat boy simply watched as Helga finished licking her popsicle.

"Don't mention it!" Helga demanded as she tossed away her wooden popsicle stick. Soon enough, Helga found herself in the eerie repetition of her dream.

"I can't believe I'm doing this!" she said wearing a cap large enough to cover all her hair. Helga had dressed in a really fat cotton sweatshirt and sweatpants to disguise that she was a girl. The shoes she wore were four sizes too large for they were Harold's. Helga kept her hands in her pocket and slumped forward, keeping her face shaded beneath the brim of her ballcap.

"Yo!" Helga muttered out when Toothless Joe unlatched his clubhouse door and peered outside. It was nothing more than a tiny firewood shed, really, with stacks of bundled newspapers to sit on. But the residents inside seemed mighty proud just the same.

"What do you want?" Iggy proclaimed with a scowl. Iggy shuffled his deck of cards and Helga had to resist the urge to lift up her fist and punch Iggy. She still remembered that pink ribbon he had thrown into the canal, after all.

"We..we.. just wanted to come by and see how all you were doing?" Harold lied poorly. "And I wanted you all to meet my new friend!"

"Harry," Helga fibbed, still keeping as slouched and low to the ground as possible. "Yo, whatz up, dude?"

"Right, right!" said Harold swishing his eyes back and forth slowly as he struggled to think. Then the portly boy remembered their plan. A smile slowly spread across Harold's face.

"So I told my friend, HARRY, here about the Badooka comic strips you all have, and he REALLY wanted to see them. Maybe you could, I don't know, let him join your club?"

"Yo, dawg," Helga muttered trying to stay in character. The boy in the clubhouse regarded Helga, pretending to be Harry, with a sniff.

"We don't let just anyone join our club, you know!" declared Iggy.

"Yeah, that's right!" said Toothless Joe. That really ugly kid who likes to steal baseballs nodded his agreement.

"To join us!" Iggy declared. "You gotta prove that you aren't girly!"

"That's right!"

"Not girly!"

"How?" Helga muttered out, keeping her hands still carefully concealed in her pockets. Though there was not a bit of nail polish on them, Helga was afraid the mere shape of them would give her away. In reply, the boys of the clubhouse dug an old dartboard out of the corner. Helga blinked. Maybe this test wouldn't be so bad after all. A few swift dart throws was all it took to send the boys oohing.

"Wow! You're definitely not a girl!" Iggie declared. Helga grimaced as Toothless Joe passed around sodas. And yet, there something as equally as appealing as appalling at being here. Helga gave out a low chortle as Toothless Joe staggered around with straws stuck up his nose so that he looked like a walrus. Then he tripped on a crate so that he flopped onto his back. She took a swig out of her soda.

"Oh, look!" said Toothless Joe pointing out the clubhouse's only window. "It's Mary!"

"That stupid girl!" Iggie insulted loudly. "She's not cool like us!" Iggy pointed to a fake tattoo on his arm.

"No! I feel'z sorry for Mary. Those stupid girls, they all believe'ch in fairy tales! They are always waiting for a prince to save them." The soda bottle slipped free from Helga's grasp. Here it was again, that nightmare she had dreamt! Eyes wide, Helga stared across the tiny enclosed space toward Harold, waiting for his reaction. But instead of chivalry, Helga saw only sadness there.

"Yeah, you guys are kind of right," agreed Harold. "Girls are kind of like that." Helga had heard enough. Stumbling backwards, she fumbled to lay the palm of one hand against her Arnold locket. It burned her. The eyes and accusations burned her. So, ramming her shoulder against the meager wooden door, she popped out of it into the freer airs of Hillwood. The boys in the clubhouse sat still, shocked at Helga's sudden departure. Helga found the will to move her feet again and fled. There were footfalls behind her and Helga slowed when she was sure they belonged to Harold Berman.

"What do you want, Harold?!" Helga spat. "Don't you think I've been insulted enough today?"

"I'm sorry that happened back there. But you don't have to feel too mad, you know! They wuz only speaking the truth!."

"Only?" asked Helga, thoroughly irritated and unwilling to turn around.

"Well, yeah!" said Harold. His lips rounded downwards in a pout. "I tried Helga, I really did try to be a prince for you! I did all sorts of things for you! I even traded my lunch for shaving cream pretending to be fooled. Well, actually, I really was fooled a couple of times, but after that I did it only because I knew you were hungry and needed food more than me!"

"I never knew that!" Helga muttered, astonished.

"But you were never grateful for any of those things I did for you!" Harold accused forcefully. Helga whirled around at last.

"Harold," said Helga sweeping her arms out in front of her in a large cross. "The marriage is over! It never was!"

"Yeah? Well that's fine!" spat Harold. "Cause Patty's a million times better than you!"

"Good!"

"Good!"

"Great!" Helga spat out last then stomped away. Fists, clenched her face seethed with anger.

It was both a long and short walk home to Helga's house. She did not even care to try to see what the rest of her family was up to this time. Instead, Helga trudged her way up to the top of the staircase, found her door and slowly swung it open looking into the unlit bedroom. Helga stumbled towards her bed and lay down on it, the tears too hot to fall. Olga, walking past, paused outside the open door of the unlit room.

"Something wrong, sweetie?" asked Olga.

"No," Helga croaked out.

"Well, okay silly!" said Olga shutting the door to the room for her leaving Helga alone in her room with the darkness. She was left to ask herself why having a platonic relationship with guys was just so hard. It was even more difficult than trying to find a non-platonic one.

The week passed. Nothing seemed to change between P.S 188's students. Then the Saturday ball game at Gerald's field arrived and Gerald and Arnold looked at the skimpy line-up.

"Where's Helga?" asked Arnold looking across the ballfield.

"I dunno!" said Gerald. "Harold's not here either!" The two boys shrugged and turned their attention back towards setting up for the game. The game following, Helga and Harold had not made an appearance, either.

"Okay, this is really strange!" fretted Arnold. "I just saw Helga in class today! But she didn't come to this game, either!"

"Word is, she and Harold got into some sort of fight!"

"Oh!" Arnold wondered out loud. The next day, he stood beside Helga at her locker as she spun the dial around.

"Hey, Helga!" said Arnold trying to attract the girl's attention. Helga kept her gaze firmly on the locker, trying to keep her face numb. "It's just that I haven't seen you around a lot lately. Is something wrong?"

"Nothing for you to worry about, fuzz for brains! No, really Arnoldo. I'm fine. It's nothing for you to know about." Arnold blinked.

"So are you coming to our next game?"

"Maybe. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. I can't promise anything. Arnoldo," Helga said forcing her words to be gentle. She managed to open her locker at last.

"Well, I'll see you later!" said Arnold. The boy went to go stand near Gerald instead. "Helga is definitely acting strange!" Arnold observed to Gerald. Gerald nodded his agreement.

The weather outside was cloudless and fair. The newest ballgame loomed near. Helga still had not made up her mind whether or not to go back to Gerald's Field. She stared at the sports gear shoved into the back of her locker and slammed the door on it. Should she skip this game, too? After having missing three games in a row, it would be just so easy to quit entirely. She could leave behind the sports phase of her life. But where would that leave her, really? Just a girl uglier than most?

So much thinking all the time was difficult. Wearing. She needed a change of scenery, bad. So instead of taking her homework home for the day, Helga stuffed all her schoolbooks back into her locker and found a bus to the Budnicks. The downtown streets there were flooded with examples of femininity. The manikins in the window defined it. The full-length poster of beautiful women posing described it. Helga watched through a window as two lady shoppers discussed the tube of lipstick one held in her hand. There were more women prancing up and down the street with bags in hand. Helga studied all of them. In none of the cases did they wear a catcher's mask. Helga lowered herself down onto a park bench. She put her head down into her hands and sighed.

"Something wrong, honey?" a saucy women's voice quipped. "You look down in the dumps!" Helga looked upwards quickly. There, standing on the sidewalk was Tish Wittenburg. Her old bowling team coach.

"Wrong? Something wrong? Nah, don't be ridiculous!" Helga sputtered on reflex. Then calming, she rubbed her hand against the sleeve of her white T-shirt in an awkward gesture.

"Well, actually," said Helga finding herself. "I'm thinking of quitting sports."

"Now, honey, why would you wanna do a thing like that?" asked Coach Tish like she had heard it all before.

"Because I'm not a guy!" Helga shouted out in disgust. "Maybe I'm just embarrassing myself with all this Tomboy stuff. Maybe I'm a girl and that's just what I'm supposed to be. Nothing else. It's too confusing otherwise."

"Now, honey!" said Coach Tish lowering herself onto the park bench next to Helga. "There's nothing to say that a girl can't play sports just like any guy! If that's what you like to do, then I say go for it! Don't let the little brats get you down!"

"It isn't like I'm not welcome," said Helga rubbing her arm in awkwardness again. "It's just that it's full of awkward moments. Not all of the guys see me as just a teammate all the time. Sometimes guys like me more than I like them. And I figure, if I wasn't around, these kinds of things wouldn't happen. We'd all be happier."

"Helga, honey, that's all nonsense!" said Tish flexing her fingertips downwards as if shaking water off the fingertips. "That's not because it's sports! You'll have those kinds of problems everywhere and anywhere you go! It all comes with being a beautiful woman! As you grow up, all the boys around you will start to see you for your charms but that isn't something you can stop from happening. You don't have to be afraid of it, either. You'll get used to it in time."

"Well, Brainy's been stalking me for years and I'm halfway used to that! But that's not what I'm talking about! I'm talking about the ones I don't want to hurt! The ones I just want to be friends with! Like Harold."

"Well, if you've said no, that's all you can do! Your friend Harold will just have to learn to be a big boy about it. After all, a girl can only say yes once in a lifetime. Unless she wants to go through a whole string of breakups that is." said Tish fixing her hair calmly.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," said Helga, her eyes roving the ground as she thought.

"Of course I am!" said Tish. "Now, in shopping retail therapy, there is one very simple personality test you can take to solve problems like these," said Helga's coach. "See that new line of bras over there? Now, tell me! If you had to pick only one item and assuming no one would see it and never know which one you picked, which color would you choose?" Helga blinked. Then, obedient to her old mentor, she examined the display.

"Red. Fire engine red," she declared after a good deal of thought. Tish smiled and winked at Helga. Helga smiled and winked back.

"I knew it!" Coach Tish declared with much triumph. "Helga, honey, I have the feeling you're gonna be just fine!" Coach Tish smiled with certainty. "Listen up. I'll buy that item for you, just this once! But come on in! They have a whole line of that Nancy Spumoni stuff you'll like." Hearing the magical name of her favorite clothes brand label, Helga's lips quivered in excitement. She threw her hands up in the air and grinning like she had finished a basket full of Easter candy, Helga skipped into the store alongside her old mentor.

The next day, there was the crack of a bat hitting a baseball at Gerald's field. The ball sailed way out to the left and unexpected, collided with a mitt as Helga G. Pataki caught the ball which might have easily sailed overhead if she had not hopped higher than most boys could go to catch it. Until this point, no one had seen her arrive so it was a bit of surprise to anyone that Arnold's strike had not been a homerun.

"Okay, a million points for me!" Helga declared, hitting her fist against the palm of her glove to soften it after she had already tossed the ball away. Arnold blinked. Out of curiosity more than anything else, he and Gerald walked nearer.

"Hey Helga!" Arnold observed. "You're back!"

"Yeah, I'm back! Wanna make something of it?"

"Nah," said Arnold. "I just wondered. We haven't seen you these last couple of games."

"Because I didn't feel like it!" Helga growled.

"Okay," said Arnold inching a bit backwards in response to Helga's moodiness. It seemed the angriness that she carried around herself constantly in the past had come back for the moment.

But Harold Berman marched across the field. The heads of both Arnold and Helga turned towards him. Helga's eyes dwelt on on Harold as he stood awkwardly some distance away, fist tucked into his pitcher's glove, waiting.

"Be right back!" Helga promised Arnold before drifting away. She marched right up to the boy in the blue vest and blue ball cap and looked him dead in eye, her arms folded together.

"Harold, I'm sorry!" said Helga. "I suppose you're right about me being an ungrateful so-and-so, so well, I'm sorry! I should have been more grateful to you. For all you've done for me."

"I'm sorry, too," said Harold scratching his arm awkwardly much like Helga liked to do. "I won't bring it up again. Big Patty wouldn't like it anyway. I promise!"

"Friends?" asked Helga by manner of truce.

"Yeah. Friends!" Helga and Harold grinned at one another. Helga nodded.

"Alright! Well, let's get this show on the road, then, people! I've come here to play!"

They resumed the baseball game. But because Helga was eager to get back into action after long absence, she bullied Harold away from the pitcher's mound to take the place herself. She coiled up and tense like a spring, paused in thought, letting emotions flicker and fade across her face.

Indifference. That was the key to her sanity. It was just her and herself. Push everyone out of her heart. Just as she could not touch anyone, no one could touch her. There was no Bob. No Miriam. No Olga or Stinky or Sid. No Harold. Not even Arnold. There was just herself and the ball, no one else. She and it could have sat beneath a cool waterfall. She and it could have gone for a long dance. In that instance, the baseball in her hand was her only companion, and the only thing that mattered. Then Helga's eyes snapped wide open and she threw.

It didn't matter that much that Toothless Joe hit the ball she had thrown and got a run. Good for the little snot, Helga thought to herself. For herself, all that mattered was that she felt cleansed just a little bit. After the absence of a couple of games, Helga wanted that ball. She needed it badly- something to chase, something to keep the adrenaline pumping through her veins, filling her with happiness if even for a little while. Like a hungry dog, she pounced on it. In the dirt and the dust and the grime of a tomboy, there was joy. She'd stay at it for a while longer. The end.


End file.
